Sami Niskanen
DESIGNING A COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR REMOTE OFFICES:
TRADITIONAL SYSTEM VERSUS CLOUD SYSTEM Case: Church council of the Evangelical Lutheran church of Finland
Master’s thesis in Computer Science
VAASA 2012
VAASAN YLIOPISTO
Teknillinen tiedekunta Tekijä: Sami Niskanen
Tutkielman nimi: Suunnitelma tietokonejärjestelmän rakentamiseksi etäpisteisiin:
perinteinen järjestelmä verrattuna. pilvipalveluna ostettuun järjestelmään. Case: Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon Kirkkohallitus.
Ohjaajan nimi: Merja Wanne Tutkinto: Kauppatieteiden maisteri Oppiaine: Tietotekniikka
Koulutusohjelma:
Opintojen aloitusvuosi: 2008
Tutkielman valmistumisvuosi: 2012 Sivumäärä: 54
TIIVISTELMÄ:
Tässä työssä vertaillaan keskenään kahta mallia rakentaa tietokonejärjestelmä.
Vastakkain ovat perinteinen malli ja pilvipalvelun malli. Työssä käydään läpi viitekehys eli kirkon ja Kirkkohallituksen tietotekniikan historiaa, nykyisyyttä ja tulevaisuutta. Sen lisäksi tutustutaan järjestelmien historiaan, nykyisyyteen, tietoturvauhkiin ja hinnoitteluun. Tutkimus on tyypiltään konstruktiivinen.
Aineistoa työn kirjoittamiseen oli käytettävissä todella paljon. Pääosa aineistosta löytyi yliopiston Nelli- tietokannan aineistohaulla ja aineisto ja lähteet kuvaavat ja tukevat hyvin työn kulkua. Työssä on mukana myös kirjoittajan oman kokemuksen myötä syntyneitä ajatuksia ja faktoja kirkon tietotekniikasta, ja arvokasta apua saatiin myös tietohallintoyksikön johtajalta haastattelun muodossa sekä yhteistyökumppaneilta.
Yllättävää oli se, että vaikka pilvipalvelut ovatkin puhutuin uusi asia IT-maailmassa juuri nyt, niistä ei juuri löytynyt yleistieteellistä tietoa, muuten kuin tietoturvan osalta sekä joitain yksittäisiä suppeaan alaan keskittyviä tutkimuksia. Esimerkiksi palveluiden hinnoittelun määrittäminen oli hankalaa. Pilvipalveluiden hinnoittelusta esitellään työssä kuitenkin joitakin malleja.
Tutkimustulos, eli johtopäätös, oli se, että nykyisillä tiedoilla on järkevämpi rakentaa järjestelmä perinteisellä mallilla. Syynä tähän ovat käytettävissä olevat resurssit, käyttäjien ja IT-henkilökunnan tietotaito sekä pilvipalveluiden hinnoittelun vaihtelevuus.
AVAINSANAT:
Pilvi, palvelu, järjestelmä, suunnittelu, etäpiste
UNIVERSITY OF VAASA
Faculty of technology Author: Sami Niskanen
Topic of the Master’s Thesis: Designing a computer system for remote offices:
traditional system versus cloud system. Case: Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran church of Finland.
Instructor: Merja Wanne
Degree: Master of Science in economics and administration Major subject: Computer science
Degree programme:
Year of entering the University: 2008
Year of completing the Master’s Thesis: 2012 Pages: 54
ABSTRACT:
This thesis is about a comparison between two models for building a system, a traditional model versus cloud model. The thesis looks through the framework which is the history, present day and the future of the It in the church and the Church Council. It also takes a look at the history, the present day, security threats and costs of the systems.
The type of this study is constructive.
There was a lot of material in use. A major part of the material was found through the university’s Nelli database search and the material and references describe and support the thesis well. There are also thoughts and facts about the information technology in the church, rising from the writer’s own experience. Valuable help was also received via an interview from the manager of the ICT-Management Unit, and also from partners who are in cooperation with the church.
Despite being the most talked about subject in the IT world, there was not much generally scientific information about cloud services, only some researches covering a small specific area. For example, defining the costs of the service was difficult.
However, there are some pricing models introduced in this paper.
The conclusion was that given the present information, it is more reasonable to build the system the traditional way. The reasons for this are the resources in use, the know-how of the users and the IT personnel and the variance of the cost of the cloud services KEYWORDS:
Cloud, service, system, design, remote office
TABLE OF CONTENTS page
1. INTRODUCTION 6
1.1. Description of the problem 7
1.2. Research approach 8
1.3. Previous researches 9
1.4. Composition of the thesis 9
2. CHURCH ORGANIZATION 11
2.1. Implementation and management of information technology in the church and in
the Church Council 12
2.2. Development of the information technology and operating environment in the
Church Council 17
2.3. Remote offices 18
3. IMPLEMENTATION AS A TRADITIONAL MODEL 19
3.1. System security 19
3.2. System design 23
3.3. Advantages and disadvantages of a traditional system 27
3.4. Founding costs 28
3.5. Maintenance costs 30
3.6. Combined costs for a four year period 30
4. IMPLEMENTATION AS A CLOUD SERVICE 33
4.1. Advantages and disadvantages of a cloud service 36
4.2. Security issues 37
4.3. Design and costs 41
5. CONCLUSIONS 46
6. SUMMARY 48
LIST OF REFERENCES 50
APPENDIXES 53
1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what are the costs, possibilities and threats when building a computer system for remote offices of the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran church of Finland. This paper also states different aspects of building the system the traditional way compared to using cloud services. This thesis also investigates, would the costs intersect and also what other factors should be considered when building the system in question. The system is to be designed to help the remote offices cope with most of their daily computer-related problems or to possibly remove the problems altogether. The computer system would consist of a server serving the workstations and users for file services, DHCP-service for distributing IP addresses for workstations (also network hardware and multifunction copiers), a virus protection and its administration service and a service for software updates.
The system can later be expanded to include Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) services for external users and guests of the organization in the remote offices. The server or servers can also be used to control information security issues within the network, such as Network Access Protocol (NAP) and for distributing software and updates.
The remote offices mentioned in this thesis are the ones currently under the IT support provided by the ICT-Management Unit of the Church Council. These are the Department for Advanced Training in Järvenpää, the Church Research Institute in Tampere, the Office of the Archbishop in Turku, the Diocese of Espoo and the Diocese of Porvoo, which is maintained by the Department of Activities In Swedish and the IT support and IT related development of which is appointed to the Swedish speaking IT consultant.
Other remaining dioceses, 7 altogether, may be incorporated later, depending on the decisions made by the Central Church Fund and the ICT-Management Unit. At the moment, preliminary plans have been made about incorporating them into the IT domain of the Central Church Fund, starting from the first half of 2012. This would mean a great amount of more work for the IT support team and the ICT-Management Unit. Therefore a system to help the remote offices as well as the dioceses would be
extremely beneficial. Also, the possible training of the personnel to take care of some issues should be taken under consideration. According to the enquiry in May 2011 and charting in January and February 2012, the IT support in the dioceses is the responsibility of their personnel. Some have also hired 3rd parties to take care of the support and other issues. If or when all the dioceses are incorporated, the IT support provided by the IT support team of the Church Council would become a valuable addition to the existing arrangement.
1.1. Description of the problem
The need for developing such a system rises mainly from the problem of network traffic generated by the use of bandwidth to save files and other data to a server located in Helsinki, even as the reliability and speeds of network connections have improved over the years. Depending on the network traffic during the busiest hours of the day, retrieving and saving these files can be extremely slow. Furthermore, workstations and network devices in the remote offices use static IP addresses, which makes administering and maintaining them difficult. Also, the frequent updates for Microsoft Windows based systems can be large; especially the service packs for operating systems and office programs. These issues and the fact that some dioceses have old and unreliable hardware in use, lead to a need to develop a system that is reliable, user- friendly and less expensive.
Because of arrangements described above, IT support persons travel frequently to the remote offices to solve problems which could be solved remotely from the main office or perhaps even avoided altogether. IT support travels to remote offices also to install programs that could install automatically. Furthermore, by creating a small system with a server, the use of workstations in the remote offices would be smoother and the load of network traffic to and from the main office would decrease, even significantly. Due to the new system, both the IT support and also the personnel in the remote offices could save considerable amounts of time and effort.
There are two alternatives to be considered when building this computer system. It can be built either the traditional way, when all hardware and software are bought and the system is designed to serve users as long as its capacity is adequate. When more
capacity is needed, the servers and workstations alongside the network hardware are renewed or updated to meet the new requirements. The second way to build the system is to buy it, or parts of it, as a service. Nowadays, cloud computing is what the computer world -and users- are excited about. Software and services, and even hardware can be bought or rented as a service from a service provider and they can be managed, updated and grown virtually. All happens in a matter of seconds, and when it comes to server capabilities, virtual servers can be updated almost without limits. They are also very easy to maintain with remote desktop connections. Cloud computing is growing as the costs decrease and as new service providers enter the field.
1.2. Research approach
The approach in this study is constructive. It means that the system in question is being designed at the same time as this thesis is written. A considerable amount of findings, basic knowledge about the information technology used in the church and conclusions are the writers own. Naturally, scientific references are used as a base and as sources of theories and they are mentioned as needed.
At first, this thesis was supposed to introduce a timeline in which the costs of the traditional system and the cloud system would have been introduced and it would have shown if the costs would meet at any point. From that point on, it would have been less expensive to continue using the cloud system compared to a traditional system.
However, time and other limitations molded the thesis towards its current appearance.
The motivation for this thesis rises also from the fact that the information technology used inside the church and the Church Council is fundamentally quite simple. This is in its part due to the fact that most of the personnel are not computer specialists, but normal office workers. It is not possible to have personnel perform very challenging tasks and the ICT professionals of the Church Council do not have the time to take care of every task. The system is being designed to help these tasks and possibly automate some of them, and also to reduce the time between a request for assistance and a solution.
1.3. Previous researches
There are not any major researches made inside the church in this field. Of course, there are literally hundreds of researches about system design and computer systems made worldwide, and the amount of researches on cloud computing is overwhelming. This is naturally a good thing, especially regarding the writing process of this thesis. There are also several researches about clouds and their fundamentals, security and characteristics.
There will be references to these researches along the way, but here is a quick look at them. Finding the research papers was not a problem. Credits for this go to the university library’s excellent Nelli -database. There were even too many papers to choose from and it took a while to read the abstracts of each one to determine whether or not it qualified.
The real problem was that it was quite hard to know what search terms to use to pick out the relevant researches. Hardest part was without a doubt finding contemporary researches about client/server technology, as the technology itself dates back to early 1990’s. The basic idea behind it is however still valid today.
Zhang, Zhang, Chen and Huo compared the difference between grid computing and cloud computing in 2010, and Kantarcioglu, Bensoussan and Hoe published a research paper about the risks of cloud adoption in 2011.
1.4. Composition of the thesis
This thesis constructs of seven main sections and their subcategories. In the first one, the subject of the thesis and main problem are introduced and defined. The second one focuses on the framework, in other words the organization and the environment where the system in question is to be built and on the history and development of that environment.
The third section discusses the design of the system, when it would be designed and built the traditional way using both existing or purchased hardware and software, along with specification of costs and possible threats to the system. The fourth section introduces the design made with cloud technology, including the threats and some cost
models. The fifth section brings the conclusions and findings to light, sixth section is for the references and the seventh one lists the appendixes.
2. CHURCH ORGANIZATION
Today, about 78 per cent of Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. This, among other things shows that the church is a respected institution in Finland. Most Finns come into contact with the Church every year due to family occasions like weddings, burials and confirmation but many Finns attend church only a few times a year, usually at Christmas and Easter. (Evl.fi 2011.)
Today Finland no longer has a state-church structure in the exact sense of the term. The system has been dismantled to give greater internal independence to the Lutheran Church. It consists of 9 dioceses and 449 parishes (as of January 1st 2011). Each parish is an independent working unit. The Church is responsible for its own finances and the parishes receive some 75 per cent of their total income from church taxes. (Evl.fi 2011.) Some speak of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland as a state church, while others call it a folk church. However, both labels are somewhat misleading, but if they are used in the correct context, they remain useful as they still give a rough picture not only of the position of the church in Finnish society, but also of the relationship between the church and the state. (Evl.fi 2011.)
To totally understand the current religious situation and church politics in Finland, it is important to bear in mind Finland’s strong state-church oriented tradition. The continuous state church situation has not only been a feature of the legal relationship between the church and the state, but in its time it set the tone for the nature of the state.
(Evl.fi 2011.)
The Lutheran Church’s autonomy in internal affairs is further protected by the fact that the national Parliament, which ultimately ratifies church law, has no right to alter the content of the proposals it receives from the Synod. All proposals must be either accepted in their original form or rejected altogether. (Evl.fi 2011.)
The most significant change has been the introduction of a new procedure for Episcopal appointments. As a result, the bishops are no longer appointed by the President of the Republic. The new procedure involves an election consisting, if necessary, of two
rounds of voting, after which the winning candidate receives an official letter of appointment from the diocesan chapter. (Evl.fi 2011.)
Another significant area of contact is the system of guarantees for the church’s financial position. Based on its public rights in state legislation, the church is entitled to collect taxes. In addition to church members, societies and corporations are also required to pay church taxes, with the exception of registered religious organizations and so called
“free-thinker” societies. (Evl.fi 2011.)
The church itself, in providing certain social services, is nurturing an ongoing relationship with the state. This is seen most clearly in that parishes continue to take responsibility for maintaining census registration data concerning their members, and for their funeral services. (Evl.fi 2011.)
In spite of the abundant and diversified contacts between the church and the state, Finnish Lutheran Church should not be classified as a traditional state church. The most decisive reason for this lies in the great internal autonomy of the Lutheran Church. State authorities cannot become involved in decisions concerning the church’s internal affairs. Therefore, local parishes have broad economic independence and autonomy, as does the Synod. (Evl.fi 2011.)
2.1. Implementation and management of information technology in the church and in the Church Council
Like many organizations, also the Church Council existed long before any kind of information technology was available. Nonetheless, the employees had to communicate to the outside world somehow. Letters were written with mechanical typewriters, some by hand, and landline telephones were used to reach people faster.
There have been computers and some sort of computer support in the Church Council since the 1980’s, and in the early 1990’s a group of church officials decided that the Church Council needed to keep up with the rest of the world. They hired a manager for the computer team and at first, in 1994, the team consisted of just two people, a manager of the team and a designer. Later that year, a few more people joined the team
and during that year, a total of five people worked in the unit: a computer specialist, the manager of the team, two temporary PC support persons and a secretary. (Karjalainen 2012.)
The unit grew slowly and in 1998 there were five persons with permanent contracts in the unit: manager of the unit, an analyst, two designers and a secretary. In the year 2000, a concern about the well-being of the unit’s employees due to massive work load was brought up, and two more positions were declared open and later filled, totaling the number of the unit’s employees to seven. As the writer of this thesis joined the unit in 2001, there were ten persons in the unit. An interesting point is that in the whole church, there were five or six full-time IT professionals in 1994. Today there are 130-150 of them. (Karjalainen 2012.)
In the end of 2011, there were 15 persons working in the ICT-Management Unit. The unit is responsible for developing and maintaining the computer systems that help the church in its main actions, economy and administration and for supporting the personnel in using them (Sakasti 2011).
This was and still is the leading thought with the ICT-Management Unit, only today it has focused on larger projects like the system for membership of the church and the IT coalitions of the parishes and parish unions. Nevertheless, it is very important also to develop and maintain the basic ICT infrastructure within the Church Council.
The information technology and the IT architecture used in the Church Council today is rather modern, but is based on a practical client/server system like in most organizations. The Church House was equipped with computer cabling in the early 1990’s, before that there was none or it was mishmash, to say the least. After the implementation of the network, all the employees got new personal computers, despite the recession in Finland during late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The users even had an email application in use. All this was due to a data administration strategy, which had been compiled since 1993. Re-writing this strategy was the first task of the present manager of the ICT-Management Unit, when he entered the Church Council (Karjalainen 2012).
The strategy included the construction of the CHURCHnet, the churches own network into which all parishes are connected. The need for building such a network rose from requirements from the Finnish Population Register Centre. In 1994 and 1995 there was some discussion between the state and the church about the role of the parishes in the population census in Finland. The government’s opinion was that all the work done with pens and papers in the parishes had to be digitalized. The registry offices felt that it was extremely difficult and time consuming to handle the hand-written papers sent from the parishes, when 40000-50000 children were baptized every year and the papers were sent to the registry offices. (Karjalainen 2012.)
Slowly the amount of parishes attached to the CHURCHnet grew, and in 1999 the Finnish parliament ratified a census law reform. The church was given a five-year transition period, and all parishes were obliged to do their share in the population census digitally by the end of 2004, communicating with the Population Register Centre via the CHURCHnet. (Karjalainen 2012.)
In the end of 1994, the government had launched a strategy concerning data networks.
The strategy stated that the networks were to be built by ISO’s OSI standards, and at the same time, the IP technology was taking over the world. The church in Finland chose to start using IP technology in their networks, as well as with email applications.
(Karjalainen 2012.)
Most computer users have up-to-date laptops with wireless and mobile, e.g. 3G network capabilities and working from home or remotely is made possible via a simple login page, although there is a sophisticated and complicated system behind it. In October 2011 all users in the church Council were registered in a new domain which makes working remotely possible and easy. Also the mobile phones have email applications and work email in general can be read from any computer connected to the Internet.
There are about 370 workstations in use, most of them being laptops with docking stations and large 23- or 24-inch displays. Most of these workstations are located in the Church House. During the first half of 2012, all workstations are being renewed. All of them are going to be laptops with docking stations and large wide screen displays.
The Church Council has some fifteen servers in use. Some servers are located in Katajanokka, inside the Church House and some are located in the service providers’
locations. These servers have different tasks, for example print server, DHCP server for managing and distributing IP addresses and domain controllers, through which the employees log in to the private corporation network.
The private network has changed a few times, the latest being a migration from an old Active Directory domain to a new one. This migration was carried out in 2011, and it included the Church House, the Department of Advanced Training, the Church Research Institute and the Diocese of Espoo. Also the IT coalitions around the country carried out similar migrations. All of these Active Directories in the church are a part of a larger forest, so that different domain controllers of the IT coalitions (of the parishes and parish unions in different parts of Finland) can have trust relationships between them. This then again means that where ever a church employee goes, he or she has a specified username with what they get most of the same services anywhere, which they get when logging on to their home network. This username follows the user through their career within the church, and is erased when he or she leaves the organization.
The future of the church is in the hands of the citizens. This might sound rough, but as the activity of the church in Finland is dependent on its members and their tax money, it is obvious that the church must prepare for the future. This of course means that if and when the money doesn’t flow in as it used to, the church and the Church Council must decrease the largest expenditure; personnel (Karjalainen 2012).
With the help of information technology, the personnel that is facing more and more challenges can survive. Personnel and travel costs can be reduced by letting technology take care of some operations and also by enabling the personnel perform operations remotely. New, reliable technology and coalitions between different units can also help smaller units cope with challenging times. (Karjalainen 2012.)
In the figure below, there is an organizational chart of the Church Council. The ICT- Management Unit was a part of the Administration Department until the beginning of 2008 when it was transferred to be a part of the Finance Department.
Figure 1. Church Council’s organizational chart.
2.2. Development of the information technology and operating environment in the Church Council
As mentioned earlier, the ICT Management Unit is quite young in general but still, when it started to operate, the applications and technology of today was far beyond anyone’s expectations. For example, the CHURCHnet (KIRKKOverkko in Finnish), a Wide Area Network (WAN) for all parishes and dioceses, was slow and rather unreliable. Parishes had only a few, if any, computers each and there were much less email addresses, compared to some 17500 today. In 2004, the number of email addresses reached 10000 and the holder of the 10000th address was rewarded (Lehtinen 2012).
Figure 2. The number of email addresses within the church during certain years of operation.
As the world –and also the church– started looking forward to the 21st century, computers and different applications became more common, and at the same time the need to save and keep electronic files grew. The Church Council went from IBM OS/2 –based hardware and software (1994-1998) through Windows 3.11, Windows NT
networks (1998-2001) and Windows 2000 (2001-2008) to Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 (from 2008 onwards) workstations and Active Directory based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 –technology where it stands today (Karjalainen 2012).
Also the CHURCHnet is about to face its third generation. It also needs to change, as the IT coalitions of parishes and parish unions need more reliable and more simplified networks to better serve their customers, the people of the parishes. The AD migration in 2011 also brought new requirements to the CHURCHnet.
2.3. Remote offices
The IT support group of the Church Council is responsible for supporting users within Church Council. This means that while there are about 200 people working in the Church House in Katajanokka, there are also several dozens of people to assist located in different remote offices, like the Department for Advanced Training in Järvenpää, the Church Research Institute in Tampere, and the Office of the Archbishop in Turku.
The Diocese of Espoo was founded in 2004 when the Diocese of Helsinki was divided in two. The other one, which is the Diocese of Helsinki today, had and still has IT support provided by their own employees and the IT support for the Diocese of Espoo was appointed to be a part of the Church Council’s responsibility. The arrangement is somewhat special of a kind, as the diocese has its own budget for IT equipment and they also make their own decisions regarding the equipment, but listen to the specialists’
opinions and recommendations. This of course is essential as the IT support only supports certain kind of hardware and software.
Incorporating other dioceses means that they will be equipped with similar workstations as in the Church Council. Some may have their own server, maintained by their own personnel and some may leave it up to the Church Council’s ICT-Management Unit to decide what kind of server they would start using and where it should be located. These servers have tasks like file storage, print server or DHCP-server.
3. IMPLEMENTATION AS A TRADITIONAL MODEL
Implementing a new system can be, and often is, a tricky task. Fortunately, there is a lot of support and know-how to be found. Some support comes as so called “silent knowledge”, where more experienced individuals share knowledge and advice younger ones, and provide strong, experience-based information. Some support comes from books and articles of the field in question, most of them being easily available from different Internet databases. Based on both of these, a simple diagram of a model is explained and shown in this thesis. The model features a simple but usable and reliable system. As always, it is good to know the facts about building such a system and also a little about the history. Network and computer security is naturally a very important issue when building a new system and also when renewing an old system.
Quite like the client/server system used in the Church Council, the system to be built should also include a server, network hardware and a multifunctional printer/copier in addition to the workstations. Remote offices have these, but as mentioned earlier, they often use servers located somewhere else than their own premises. This generates unnecessary network traffic which could be avoided by setting up a server closer to the actual users. In many dioceses, the server is located under premises, but the technology sometimes being outdated, a renewal of these servers is a very considerable option.
3.1. System security
In this thesis, the system being designed is based on the old system. In fact, there is not an immediate need for the system, as the old system works. But the system should be re-planned and re-organized or even re-built because the systems in the remote offices are built ages ago, especially if they are analyzed from usual IT equipment’s life span perspective. Re-building any system also raises questions about security, especially network security. Users in the remote offices are members of a domain, and they have usernames and passwords with which they log in to the network. But how can they be sure that this information is secure?
Yue, Chen and Wang (2009) show that network safety has 4 characteristics: integrity, confidentiality, availability and controllability. Integrity means that data cannot be changed, unless it is done by people who are authorized to do so and are capable of determining whether or not it has been changed. Confidentiality means that data is not leaked to unauthorized people or entities or to their use. Encryption is often used to ensure this. Availability means that access to data is authorized by an entity and is made available for use on demand. Controllability means that the flow of information is controlled by a system, and it can also control who can access data, and authenticate users.
Main threats to a network security are the following: 1) unintentional human error. This includes vulnerabilities in security configuration and users with poor or non-existent security awareness, 2) man-made attacks, which are divided into two groups, active attacks and passive attacks, 3) loopholes, or “back doors” in software, and 4) non- authorized access, where networks or computers are used for illegal operations. (Yue et al. 2009.)
As computer technology has advanced, for example federal agencies in the United States and their nation’s critical infrastructures such as power distribution and water supply have become increasingly dependent on computerized information systems.
These systems carry out their operations and process, maintain and report essential information. Public and private organizations rely heavily on computer systems to transfer increasing amounts of money and sensitive information. They are also used to conduct operations and deliver services. (Wilshusen 2011.)
The security of these systems and data is vital to protecting national and economic security, as well as public health and safety. On the contrary, ineffective information security controls can result in major risks, including the loss of resources like payments and collections. Another great risk is inappropriate access to sensitive information, such as national security information or even personal information of citizens. It could even disrupt critical operations supporting critical infrastructure, national defense, or emergency services. (Wilshusen 2011.)
Threats to systems that support critical infrastructure and information systems are evolving and growing. US government officials are concerned about attacks from both
individuals and groups, such as criminals, terrorists, and foreign nations. Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have identified multiple sources of threats to United States’ critical information systems, including foreign nations through espionage and information warfare. These groups and individuals have a variety of attack techniques at their disposal. These techniques can be used to find vulnerabilities and enter certain systems. (Wilshusen 2011.)
The connection between information systems and the Internet creates opportunities for attackers to disturb and destroy telecommunications, electrical networks and other critical services. In May 2008, it was reported that the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) corporate network contained security weaknesses. It could lead to the disruption of control systems networks and devices connected to that network. TVA concurred with the recommendations made by a security corporation and has taken steps to implement them. (Wilshusen 2011.)
Incidents like the one depicted above, put sensitive information at risk. Identifiable personal information about U.S. citizens has been lost or stolen, potentially exposing those individuals to loss of privacy, identity theft, and financial crimes. Different agencies have experienced a wide range of incidents involving data loss or theft, computer intrusions and privacy breaches, showing the need for improved security.
Furthermore, reported attacks and unintentional incidents involving critical infrastructure systems show that a serious attack could be devastating. (Wilshusen 2011.)
When these incidents occur, agencies are supposed to notify the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). The reported incidents have increased dramatically, from 5500 in 2006 to about 42000 incidents in 2010. This is a more than 650 percent increase. The three most common types of incidents and events reported to US-CERT during 2010 were malicious code, improper usage and unauthorized access.
(Wilshusen 2011.)
According to McGee, Vasireddy, Xie, Picklesimer, Chandrashekhar, and Richman (2004) the four types of security threats to a network that can be caused by intentional or unintentional actions are interruption, interception, modification, and fabrication.
Interruption: An asset of the system becomes lost, unavailable, or unusable. This is an attack on availability. Examples include malicious destruction of a network element, erasing a software program or data file, cutting a communication line, and malfunction of an operating system file manager so that it cannot find a particular disk file. (McGee et al. 2004.)
Interception: An unauthorized party gains access to an asset. The outside party can be a person, a program, or a computing system. This is an attack on confidentiality.
Examples of this type of attack are “wiretapping” to obtain data in a network and passive listening to a wireless radio transmission. (McGee et al. 2004.)
Modification: An unauthorized party tampers with an asset. This is an attack on integrity. Examples include changing the network configuration values in a database and modifying data that is being transmitted in a network. (McGee et al. 2004.)
Fabrication: An unauthorized party gains access to and fabricates counterfeit objects on a network. This is an attack on authenticity. Examples include unauthorized access to the network, untraceable malicious activity on the network and the addition of records to an authentication database. (McGee et al. 2004.)
The section above depicts examples of what a critical system must prepare for. Church network might not be the most critical system, but nonetheless, it may offer at least a plausible passage to government and public networks that contain critical information, and the fact that church in Finland does collect census data about its members, is a viable cause to protect the network properly. Networks are protected by firewalls and other devices that monitor and restrict network traffic from a network to another. Also an anti-virus software and hardware are critical. They prevent malicious software from entering the protected network.
According to a research by Yue, Chen and Wang (2009) firewalls can be divided into three groups:
1) Packet filtering type firewall, also known as filtering router or network –layer firewall. It works at the network layer and transport layer and is based on a single data packet network control, according to IP source address of the packet received and IP
destination addresses. It also has a user access control list to compare whether the data is in line with pre-established security policy. It is designed to control the internal hosts of the network. It may allow direct access to the external network, while the external network access to hosts in the internal network will have to be restricted. The advantages of such a firewall are that it is a simple, convenient, fast and transparent and has little impact on performance. Unfortunately it lacks the user logs and audit information and due to different operating environments, it may have poor compatibility. (Yue et al. 2009.)
2) Proxy server-based firewall. These kinds of firewalls run on the host through the proxy server program, reporting directly to a particular application layer service. It is also known as application-oriented firewall. A proxy server is actually a specific network gateway to connect two networks. For each different application services, there must be a corresponding agent, and to establish a connection between the internal and external network it must be made through a proxy in the middle of the conversion. The internal network only accepts service requests made by the proxy. (Yue et al. 2009.) 3) The composite firewall. Because of higher security requirements, usually packet filtering and proxy services, functions and characteristics of the system together, constitute a complex firewall system. The host is called a bastion host, and it is responsible for agency services. (Yue et al. 2009.)
Various types of firewalls have their own advantages and disadvantages. The current firewall products are no longer single type of packet filtering firewalls or proxy server type, but rather a variety of security technologies that are combined to form a hybrid multi-level firewall, a system in order to enhance flexibility and security. Hybrid firewalls generally use techniques like dynamic packet filtering; user authentication, internal information hiding, intelligence logs, auditing and real-time alerts and firewall interoperability. (Yue et al. 2009.)
3.2. System design
In 1992, Chang and Kwong presented one of many models to construct a computer system. Their system consisted of workstations and a server, and the network was built
with Ethernet cabling. Even today, systems are still built the same way, at least on a principal level. Chang’s and Kwong’s system, being from the beginning of the PC era, represents a system which was typical at the time, with 80286/AT, 80386/AT or 80486/AT chipset PC’s but the principal and basics of building a system where a server serves several workstations, is still valid today. This is the principal the system in question in this thesis is built with, but as we can see in the figure by Intel (2012) below, there are almost five hundred times more transistors in the modern era CPU, than in the Intel486 processor, which was introduced in 1989. This means that the computing power has increased at the same rate. It has been estimated, that in 2050 the computing power of computers exceeds the power of 10 billion human brains. Be that as it may, the today’s computers will do the same as the computers of 1995, only several hundred times faster.
Figure 3. The count of transistors on a single microprocessor. (Intel 2012)
G. Edward Bryan explained in his research paper (1995) that a client/server computing is a style or architecture for distributed computing. According to him, there are two classes of computers on the network: client and server. Client computers are in the hands of end users; servers provide shared services available to all users. Client/server systems are usually distributed geographically over a wide area: a building, a town, a country, or even the world. They are able to connect together because of the use of standard agreements on interfaces. Without the agreed standards, connection would not be possible. (Bryan 1995.)
Standards became available in the 1970’s, which resulted in extensive change and explosive growth in the computer business. The existence of standards makes client/server systems possible, but standards have not made them problem-free. Clients always provide for the user system interface, and it is through clients that the user makes requests for service. (Bryan 1995.)
For example, for an airline reservation system a request for a seat is a short transaction that must be sent to the system where the seat record is kept. It wouldn’t be a very good idea to have a copy of the database in several places and risk selling the seat more than once. (Bryan 1995.)
Today most clients are PC’s that provide independent processing of user applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentation creation programs, scheduling and calendar programs and personal databases. Server computers generally handle central functions needed by all users of the client/server computer network system. Servers, which provide these shared services, are larger, more powerful systems with larger memories and more disk storage, and sometimes with backup tape drives and other peripheral devices. (Bryan 1995.)
They provide and control central services such as database storage, print service and high-capacity computational service which all the users of the system share. There are often multiple servers providing different network services or providing added capacity.
Distributed systems originally used central systems with "dumb" terminals connected through an often proprietary network. These were "timesharing" systems, since all computing was done on the mainframe which was multiplexed or timeshared among them. (Bryan 1995.)
There were no concerns about where the data was, but if the machine broke down everyone was affected. In client/server systems the failure of a single client is not such a bad thing, except, of course, to the owner of the failed system or users of the failed server. (Bryan 1995.)
The figure below explains the basics needed for the system in question.
Figure 4. A basic model for a system.
Workstation 1
Workstation 2
Workstation 3
Workstation 4 Server
DHCP Print services File server
Virus protection services Remote Desktop
Multifunctional copier/printer Internet
Internal network of the organization (intranet)
Central switch with
VLAN/WLAN capabilities
WLAN for visitors etc.
Firewall
VLAN
3.3. Advantages and disadvantages of a traditional system
When thinking of the advantages and the disadvantages of a traditional system, which here means something other than a cloud system, many people think of the costs first.
Of course, it is essential, especially in an organization that runs on taxpayer’s money. In the tables in the next sections, there are some costs gathered up. But costs are not the only thing that is to be concerned. Personnel resources for building the system must be figured out also, and one important thing is that how much outside assistance (consultants etc.) is needed. One major advantage is that most of the building can be done with existing human resources. There is enough know-how in the ICT- Management Unit for it and also, if planned correctly, workload should not be too heavy for one or two individuals, who take the hardware to a predetermined place, install the software and start and test the system. The workstations are pre-installed with an image that contains the operating system, office programs and other essential software, and therefore only the server software is to be installed onto the server hardware. Below is a table where most apparent “pros and cons” are listed.
The costs featured here are per year, the first year being the most expensive because acquisitions are added to a yearly cost. These acquisitions include the hardware and new software, so that existing software contracts are have been taken into account. For example, the price of the workstation OS is already included in the price of the workstation and the price in the tables is the price of the upgrade, for example from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Furthermore, as mentioned before, some old hardware can be used, but the cost tables in this paper show the scenario where all hardware and needed software are purchased as new. In the section 3.6., there are two tables, tables 4 and 5. Table 4 sums up the yearly cost for the first year and table 5 shows the costs for years two, three and four.
Personnel costs, being hard to measure, are left out of the costs. The personnel are appointed to this project as a part of their daily duties, so they present no extra cost. If any extra, for example construction work is needed for cabling etc., they require very specific contracts and are therefore left out of the cost tables.
Table 1. Known advantages and disadvantages when building a system.
Issue Explanation Advantage/Disadvantage
Know how Personnel are capable of determining needs and building the system.
Advantage
Human resources Personnel are willing and able to take on the building, no extra workforce needed.
Advantage
Itemized work
- cabling works - electrical works
If any cabling (that demands construction work) or electrical works are needed, a 3rd party certified
professional is needed.
Disadvantage
Transportation of hardware The hardware must be transported to a site; either delivered there directly or by transporting it there by the personnel.
Advantage/Disadvantage
Premises The hardware must be kept
safe behind locked doors.
Disadvantage
3.4. Founding costs
In the table below, there are a group of devices and their extra features mentioned needed to build a basic system. The prices are near estimates, a part of them are based on real contracts, and a part is gathered from vendor websites. The sums are rounded for clarity.
Table 2. Hardware for a system.
Hardware Needed Cost in euros
Server
HP, suitable for small businesses or remote offices, includes 4-core CPU, 4 Gb memory, no hard disks
Yes 1200
- server extra memory, 4Gb x 3 Yes 3x75=225
- server extra hard disks (HP 2Tb disk, 7200 rpm, 3,5”)
Yes 500
- server network interface card, 1Gb Yes 200 Workstations
- laptops, incl. docking station, mouse, keyboard, 23” display, and a 4-year guarantee.
Yes 1500
Switch, scenario 1 No, existing used -
Switch, scenario 2 Yes 650
Router No, existing or
none used
-
Cabling, scenario 1 No, existing cabling used
-
Cabling, scenario 2 Yes Depending on the
need
Copier/printer No, existing used
Table 3. Software for a system.
Software Needed Cost in euros
Server OS Yes 450
Workstation OS, upgrade Yes 170
Office programs Yes 170
Anti-virus software, workstations
Yes 15
Anti-virus software, servers
Yes 15
3.5. Maintenance costs
During the four-year period, which is covered by the guarantee of the workstations and servers, there should be no major extra costs due to maintenance. Of course, nothing is ever completely certain, so the organization should be prepared for costs that are caused by surprising events, like a breakage of hardware uncovered by a guarantee. Any delay costs, direct or indirect, for example long waits due to breakage when employees have to wait for repairs, are difficult to measure but have to be taken into account.
The costs for ISP (Internet Service Provider) services are included in the maintenance cost, but these costs have been going on before the first year investments and they will go on after that. The listed price in the cost tables is an estimate, although it is based on a real contract. The price consists of the network maintenance, hardware maintenance and general costs that are related in those.
3.6. Combined costs for a four year period
In table 4 below, there are the first year costs combined. This example shows the costs for a remote office that has 10 workstations, a server, and a central switch, the software for workstations and the server and anti-virus programs for workstations and the server.
Also, the price of the server consists of the server itself and the extra memory, upgraded
network interface card and a large capacity hard disk. The table also includes the cost for the ISP services, which includes maintenance and other, for example email services
Table 4. First year costs combined.
Item of expenditure Cost in euros
Server 2125
Workstations, 10 pcs 15000
Switch 650
Workstation software, OS + office programs + antivirus
3550
Server software, OS + anti-virus 465
ISP service 2500
TOTAL 24290
Table 5. The costs for years 2, 3 and 4 combined
Item of expenditure Cost in euros
Workstation software, office programs + antivirus. Only office and anti-virus licenses needed.
5100
Server software, only anti-virus license needed
45
ISP service 7500
TOTAL 12645
As we can see from the tables above, the costs peak the first year but the following three years combined make only about a half of the first years investment.
4. IMPLEMENTATION AS A CLOUD SERVICE
Several people and businesses alike think that cloud computing will change the way we do business. One of them, president of Twist Image Mitch Joel, writes in his blog February 14th 2012 that if the cloud isn’t on your businesses mind, it should be. He firmly believes that it will change everything. According to him, it’s a revolution as big as the microprocessor and as relevant as the desktop computer. It is to be seen what the future brings, especially with the cloud. (Joel 2012.)
But why is it so important, then? Putting it simply, a cloud is a just a term for the Internet as a storage facility. But isn’t this an old concept already? In fact, it is old. The first steps were made in 1960, when a computer scientist called John McCarthy stated that “Computation may someday be organized as a public utility” and in 1965 Western Union had a dream about the company being US-wide “information utility”. (Marston et al. 2011.)
In 1969, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the chief scientists of the original Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (better known as ARPANET) said:” As of now, computer networks are still in their infancy, but as they grow up and become sophisticated, we will probably see the spread of computer utilities which, like present electric and telephone utilities, will service individual homes and offices across the country.” This vision of the computing utility based on the service provisioning model anticipates the transformation of the entire industry in the 21st century, where computing services will be available on demand much like many utility services are available today (Buyya et al. 2009).
Cloud computing is becoming a promising alternative to the traditional in-house IT computing services. Cloud computing is a form of computing in which providers offer computing resources like software and hardware on-demand. All of these resources are connected to the Internet and they are provided dynamically to the users. Cloud providers are able to provide computing services to both enterprise and personal users.
(Sahinoglu & Cueva-Parra 2011.)
Some companies see this form of computing as a single major type of service which will be demanded extensively in the next decade. In fact, companies like Google, IBM,
Microsoft, HP, Amazon, and Yahoo among others have already made investments not only in cloud research but also in establishing cloud computing infrastructure services.
(Sahinoglu & Cueva-Parra 2011.)
Cloud computing services fall into three major categories: 1) infrastructure as a service, IaaS, (2) software as a service, SaaS, and (3) platform as a service, PaaS. In IaaS virtualized servers, storage and networks are provided to the clients. SaaS is focused on allowing clients to use software applications through web- interfaces. A service targeted to developers who focus primarily on application development only, without dealing with platform administration (operating system maintenance, load balancing, scaling, etc.), is called PaaS. (Sahinoglu & Cueva-Parra 2011.)
Advances in virtualization, distributed computing, and high-speed network technologies have given further push to cloud computing. The major advantages are scalability, flexibility, resilience, and affordability. However, as users whether it is companies, organizations or individual persons, turn to cloud computing services for their businesses and commercial operations, there is a growing concern from the security and reliability perspectives as to how those services actually rate. The serviceability measurement can be categorized into three areas: performance, reliability, and security.
Performance and reliability are two characteristics related to the condition of the providers’ infrastructure and the way they maintain and update them. Security, more precisely data protection and disaster recovery, on the other hand, is one aspect that is more difficult to measure (Sahinoglu & Cueva-Parra 2011).
Both cloud computing providers and users need a way to measure the quality of this service, mainly in the area of reliability and security. This metric can provide the sending and receiving end-users with a better sense of what both parties are getting for their return of investment. Also, it gives providers a concrete numerical reference, rather than just vague attributes, so they can improve the quality of the current service.
However, despite evident benefits, cloud computing lacks precise analysis regarding its quality of service. In general, the quality of cloud computing services is difficult to measure, not just qualitatively, but most importantly quantitatively. (Sahinoglu &
Cueva-Parra 2011).
Cloud computing may mean a fundamental change in the way information technology services are invented, developed, deployed, updated and scaled, as well as maintained and paid for. Computers continue to become exponentially more powerful as the cost per unit falls significantly, so much so that computing power is widely seen as a commodity. This presents a paradox, because at the same time, as computing becomes more pervasive within organizations, the ever increasing complexity of managing the whole infrastructure has made computing more expensive than ever to an organization.
(Marston et al. 2011.)
Cloud computing promises to deliver all the functionality of existing information technology services, and more, at the same time dramatically reducing the costs that hinder many organizations from implementing new services. These promises of course have led to great expectations. According to AMI partners, small and medium sized businesses are expected to spend over 100 billion US dollars on cloud computing by 2014. (Marston et al. 2011)
In addition, in the figure below, we can see that according to Gartner (2010), the cloud- based applications are estimated to grow from approximately 6 billion US dollars to approximately 20 billion US dollars between 2009 and 2014.
Figure 5. Growth of cloud-based applications. (Gartner 2010)
4.1. Advantages and disadvantages of a cloud service
Cloud computing is a flexible, cost- effective and proven delivery platform for providing business or consumer IT services over the Internet. Computing services, ranging from data storage and processing, to software such as email handling, are now available instantly, commitment-free and on-demand. Cloud computing can be compared to the early days of electricity networks. Homes, businesses and towns did not want to produce or rely on their own source of power. They began connecting in to greater power grid, supported and controlled by power utilities. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
Along with this utility connection, came time and cost saving, in addition to greater access to, and more reliable availability of power. Similarly, the new concept of cloud computing offers dynamically scalable resources provisioned as a service over the Internet and therefore, promises a lot of economic benefits to be distributed among those who adopt the service. Email, instant messaging, business software and web content management are among the many applications that may be offered via a cloud environment. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
The main focus of cloud computing, from the provider’s view points, is to have extra hardware connected to support down time on any device in the network, without a change in the user’s perspective. The cloud computing allows users to avoid upfront hardware and, software investments gain flexibility, collaborate with others, and take advantage of the sophisticated services that cloud providers offer. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
Distinct layers can be defined based on the resources provided by the cloud. The bottom layer provides infrastructure services such as CPUs, memory, and storage and is known as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). The middle layer provides platform-oriented service, enabling the usage of hosting environments tailored to a specific need and is known as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). For example, a PaaS service may enable to deploy and dynamically scale python and Java based web applications. The top layer provides users with ready to use applications and is known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). All these layers reduce capital expenditures, e.g., IaaS layer reduces hardware costs and license cost is reduced in all layers. In spite of these benefits, cloud computing
raises a number of important policy issues regarding how people, organizations, and governments handle information and interactions in this environment. (Tripathi &
Mishra 2011.)
The figure below explains what the cloud service consists of.
Figure 6. Cloud computing services.
Cloud computing also raises severe concerns, especially, regarding the security level provided by such a concept. There are three important things to be mentioned about cloud security. Firstly, cloud security is almost exactly like internal security. The security tools that are used nowadays to protect the internal network cloud, also used to protect data in the cloud. Secondly, for remaining financially competitive, some of these security technologies should be moved to the cloud. Thirdly, if a quality cloud service provider is selected, the security in the cloud will be as good as or better than the current security in most cases. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
4.2. Security issues
Tripathi and Mishra (2011) also define some risks in their paper:
1) VM-Level attacks.
IaaS, Infrastrutcture as a service PaaS, Platform as a service SaaS, Software as a service
CLOUD SERVICES
The cloud computing is based on VM technology. For implementation of cloud, a hypervisor such as VMWare, vSphere, Microsoft Virtual PC, Xen etc. are used. This threat arises because of the vulnerabilities appearing in these hypervisors due to some facts being overlooked by developers during the coding of these hypervisors. The threat arising due to VM-Level vulnerabilities can be mitigated by monitoring through IDS (Instruction Detection System)/IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and by implementing firewalls. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
2) Abuse and nefarious use of cloud computing.
This threat arises due to relatively weak registration systems present in the cloud computing environment. In cloud computing registration process, anyone having a valid credit card can register and use the service. This facilitates anonymity, due to which spammer, malicious code authors and criminals can attack the system. According to Tripathi & Mishra (2011) this type of threat can be mitigated in following ways:
- by implementing stricter registration process and validation process.
- by credit card fraud monitoring and coordination.
- detailed introspection of user’s network traffic.
- network blocks through monitoring public black lists.
3) Loss of governance
The client gives up control to the cloud provider on a number of issues while using the cloud infrastructure. The service Level Agreements (SLA) may not have commitment on the part of cloud provider, to provide such services, thus having a gap in security defenses affecting security. This loss of control may lead to a lack of confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Unfortunately there are no publicly available standards specific to cloud computing security. Thus organizations considering cloud services need to exercise persistent and careful efforts for the execution of Service Level Agreements. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
4) Lock-in
Lock-in means inability of the customer to migrate from one cloud service provider to another .This is due to loss of portability of the customer data and programs. Presently, there are few tools, procedures or standard data formats which provide data, application or service portability. This prevents customers or organizations from adopting cloud computing. To mitigate this, standardized cloud Application Programming Interface
(API) should be used. This standardization will ensure cloud computing to be more fully accepted. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011)
5) Insecure interfaces and API’s
Customers use a set of software interfaces or APIs to interact with cloud services. The provisioning, management, orchestration and monitoring of the cloud service are generally done using these interfaces .If the weak set of interfaces and APIs are used, this may expose organizations to various security threats, such as anonymous access, reusable tokens or password, clear-text authentication or transmission of content, inflexible access controls or improper authorizations, limited monitoring, and logging capabilities. To mitigate the above threats, the security model of cloud provider interfaces should be analyzed. Strong authentication and access controls should be implemented. Encryption should be used for transmission of content and, dependency chain associated with the API should be clearly understood. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.) 6) Isolation failure
The services are delivered in cloud computing by sharing infrastructure .The components that are used to build Disk partitions, CPU cache, graphics processing units etc are not designed to offer strong isolation properties or compartmentalization. The hypervisors, that are basic building blocks for cloud computing, have exhibited flaws that enable guest operating system to gain unauthorized control .Due to this isolation failure, the attackers focus on to impact the operations of other cloud customers to gain unauthorized access to data. Strong compartmentalization should be employed so that the individual customers do not impact the operations of other customers .This can be enforced by implementing best practices for installation, configuration, monitoring environment for unauthorized changes/activities, promoting strong authentication and access control, patching the vulnerabilities and conducting vulnerability scanning and configuration audits. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
7) Data loss or leakage
Data loss or leakages have an adverse effect on the business. The brand or reputation is completely lost and the customers’ morale and trust are eroded. This data loss or leakage may be due to insufficient authentication, authorization and audit controls, inconsistent use of encryption and software keys, disposal challenges, a data center reliability, and disaster recovery. The threats arising due to data loss or leakage can be
mitigated by encrypting and protecting integrity of data in transit, analyzing data protection at both design and runtime, implementing strong key generation, storage and management. Contractually demanding provider to wipe persistent media before it is released in to pool and contractually specifying provider backup and retention strategies. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
8) Account or service hijacking
The above threat occurs due to phishing, fraud and software vulnerabilities .Attackers can steal credentials and gain access to critical areas of deployed cloud computing services, resulting in compromise of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of these services. To mitigate the above threats, sharing of account credentials between users and services should not be allowed, multi-factor authentication techniques should be used wherever possible, strict monitoring should be done to detect unauthorized activity, and security policies, as well as SLA’s of the cloud provider, should be clearly understood. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
9) Management interface compromise
The customer management interface of the cloud provider is accessible through the internet .In cloud computing, larger set of resources are accessed through these interfaces than traditional hosting, since cloud computing provides remote access to customers through these management interfaces. This may pose a serious threat if web browser vulnerabilities are present. To mitigate threats arising due to remote access, secure protocol should be used to provide access. Also, web browser vulnerabilities should be completely patched before providing remote access. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
10) Compliance risks
This threat arises due to lack of governance over audits and industry standard assessments. Due to this, customers of cloud services do not have a view into the processes, procedures and practices of the provider in the areas of access, identity management and segregation of duties. Organizations that seek to obtain certification, may be put at risk because cloud computing service providers may not be able to provide evidence of their own compliance with the necessary requirements or may not permit an audit by cloud customer. To lessen this threat vendors’ internal audit process
should be reviewed. How often it is audited by external agencies and, whether or not, it is open to being audited for compliance. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
11) Malicious insiders
This threat is well known to most organizations .Malicious insiders’ impact on organization is considerable. Given their level of access, they can infiltrate organizations and assets and do brand damage, financial losses and productivity losses.
Therefore, it is critical for customers of cloud services as to what controls have been provided by cloud providers to detect and defend against the malicious insider threats.
The Malicious insider threats can be mitigated by specifying human resources requirements as part of legal contracts, conducting a comprehensive supplier assessment, providing transparency into overall information security and management practices, as well as compliance reporting and determining security breach notification processes. (Tripathi & Mishra 2011.)
4.3. Design and costs
The design of a cloud system can vary from very simple to a very complicated one. In this thesis the design is quite simple. This is due to the fact that everything cannot be implemented as a cloud service, in contrary of the promises. This was learned when talking to a Microsoft specialist in the Microsoft TechDays 2012 event in Helsinki 8th and 9th of March 2012.
This naturally raises concerns about the adaptability and suitability of a cloud system for the remote points. Their need is in short to use, modify and save files during the work day and possibly continue the next, communicate via email and use either web- based or local services.
Also, as several researches show, the pricing and cost models or predictions are difficult to make, due to the nature of the cloud service being full of variables and also due to the very competitive environment.
